ISO 9000 Compliance vs. ISO 9000 Registered: Buyer Beware
by: James P. O'Neil, Past President of ITS Intertek Services 

ISO 9000 compliant. ISO 9000 registered. Are these phrases the same? Although the words are only slightly different, the two phrases are virtually worlds apart in meaning.

Unfortunately, there are companies, by virtue of a play on these words, that may be misleading the public into thinking that ISO 9000 compliance is comparable to ISO 9000 registration.

ISO 9000 compliance is merely a self-declaration by a company stating that it meets the requirements enumerated in ISO 9000. The employees who are usually entrusted to conduct ISO 9000 compliance audits, more often than not, are those who designed and implemented the company's quality management system. Therefore, when identifying discrepancies within the system, these employees offer little objectivity. What's more, there's no guarantee that an internal employee is even qualified to conduct an ISO 9000 audit. Doesn't ISO 9000 compliance seem like a case of the fox guarding the hen house?

On the other hand, registration is conducted and granted by an independent third-party registrar that's mandated by the ISO 9000 accreditation bodies to determine a company's compliance with the ISO 9000 requirements. Sometimes lasting up to two years, the ISO 9000 registration process is an intense, unbiased inspection performed by qualified auditors under the requirements of EN45012 in the EU and of ISO 10011 in the US. ISO 9000 registration carries more credibility than compliance because there's a system of checks in place. The registrar audits the company and the ISO accreditation bodies continually scrutinize the registrar.

Now, would you rather conduct business with a company that's had extensive training in quality management or one that's had a lesson in semantics?
 

Reprinted from The Pioneer - Summer 1997  Copyright © 1997 by ITS Intertek Services

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